From Dark to Light
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1 John 1:5-10
1 John 1:5-10
I wanted to start with a question today. What is it that holds the most value to you personally?
Is it your wife?
Your husband?
Your kids
Your cars
Your money
Maybe Your relationship with God?
Hold that thought.
Keep it there cause we are going to come back to it.
You know when I was inquiring to become a chaplain
I remember that one requirement
2 years ministry experience
I believe at the time I had like 13 years ACTIVE
So I was racking my brain and I
Decided I would try to gain an internship
Local church while going to seminary
So the first church I went to I got a great response.
The pastor was very open to the idea
In fact he already had one intern helping him
Was very excited to take me on
So I told him i’d be back in two weeks.
Susan and I were going to California to show off little Sydney to grandma
So we set a start date
Well as soon as I got back I noticed things had changed.
The church had a new pastor
And the entire deal was off.
See what had happened was the pastors wife was caught cheating with the pastors best friend.
It was heart breaking.
Keep in mind this is a pastor
So everything is very public
Plus it was a small town
Everyone knew
I mean it was incredibly embarrassing for both parties
I mean what a way to potentially discourage me
Now what was truly unique about this story
What was life changing for me
Was the fact that this pastor forgave his wife and accepted her back as if nothing happened.
I mean he had every right to just drop her.
First off he’s a pastor so this was very very public.
It wasn’t a big town so you can imagine the news spread fast.
I mean talk about embarrassment.
But the one thing I really remember about this scenario was what that pastor told me.
I remember we were sitting down for a breakfast together
He was apologizing for not being able to carry on with the internship
Obviously this was the last thing on my mind
But Remember asking him, where do you go from here?
He said he was going to stay with his wife
That he was going to forgive his wife
I was baffled,
How is this even possible
I mean he lost his career
His friends
He eventually had move
His entire life was collapsing before my eyes
You know what he told me
He said if Christ can forgive me, then I can forgive my wife.
I’ll tell you. That hit me.
To understand what true forgiveness is.
And that’s what this passage is about.
The forgiveness of God,
That relationship with God
You see you can’t be at one with God
When you’re filled with hatred and anger
When you’re filled with sin
And that’s what I want to talk about today.
Understanding our relationship with God
Understanding what keeps us from gaining that peace that so many pastors talk about
And finally understanding what forgiveness truly is.
This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
Lets open in prayer
John opens up here with a statement
That’s not only powerful
Not only life changing
But the message you’re about to hear
Comes from THE ONE
Confirmed and validated by THE ONE
That He is so excited about
This messiah
This individual they had been waiting thousand of years for
This is coming from Him
Rather than just ignoring the validation piece that John is giving
Let’s acknowledge something here
What John saying
You can Trust
In what is being said here
You can be confident
That John is about to express
absolute truth
And why is that so important?
Because every where we go
People attack the authenticity of the Bible
In fact every major religion
Every world view
Every major belief
Attacks the Bible
The authority and the claims of the Bible
Once you start questioning the Bible
Once you lose trust in its truth
In its authority
You start to see your faith dwindle
You start to question
Everything about the faith
AM I wrong?
You even begin to negotiate your own sin
Your own behaviors
Your own habits
You start to tell yourself
I can do this particular sin just this once,
God won’t mind,
no ones paying attention
I’m not bothering anyone
Or how about your salvation?
You realize a recent study showed
70% of supposed born again Christian
Believe that Jesus is NOT the only way to God
That the truth of the Bible isn’t 100%
That there are multiple paths to God
And’s thats why Johns first statement here is so vital
Johns states here
1 John 1:5 (NLT)
This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.
See John is exposing something to us
Something about the character of God
John is saying that
God is perfect
He is holy
He is righteous
He is everything we are not
But thats a major issue though
Because once we start negotiating
Once we start questioning Biblical truth
We lose this mindset
We lose the mentality that God is in charge
And this my friends is the heart of our problem
The root of many of our issues
We have no fear of God
We have no understanding of our position
We feel as though we own the ticket to eternal life
And for no other reason
than just because
I hear it all the time, I’m not Adolf Hitler
I’m not Joseph Stalin
I haven’t done anything to anyone
You know how many people have told me
God will accept me for who I am,
doesn’t matter what I do
God has to accept me
God will accept me
And do you know how confident they are in that statement!
I mean no fear of God whatsoever
Do you have any idea how stupid that statement actually is
I’m telling you
Here’s where the line in the sand is truly drawn
Because I firmly believe
And I can back it up with Scripture
That the greatest lie ever told
Is that you’re a good person
That God needs you
So he will accept you no matter what
Folks that’s heresy
The Bible says something entirely different
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
and in
Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
There is a difference between us and God
It’s as if we are plagued by a disease
A disease called in sin
Sin that requires us to have a savior
But at the same time
The Bible also gives an answer to this disease
An answer to our pain
An answer to our problems
An answer to our sin!
And that answer is Jesus
1 John 1:5 (NLT)
....God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.
Jesus is our standard
He is our way to be with the father
The only means getting into heaven
That’s why he is our savior.
Remember the last sermon
Why was John so excited
Why was he literally screaming in the text
I saw him
I touched him
Its because John knew
Jesus is the answer to everything
He is the way to the father
He is the answer to our sin
He is the only means of achieving God’s standard!
John is making this perfectly clear
God is perfect
And you cannot be with a perfect God
When you’re tainted by the very thing He hates,
and that is sin
You cannot be in the presence of a holy God
You cannot be in the presence of perfection
While you are tainted with the very thing
That separated us from God in the Garden
Look Adam and Eve
They didn’t do anything crazy
That had a bite of an apple
And from that point on everything went down hill
And yet for some reason
We live in a society that feels as though
They are justified in claiming
They have the rights to heaven
They have deed the promise to heaven
Simply because they feel as though they are good
They deserve heaven
And that’s just it
Its a satanic lie
Look if you never realize you’re a sinner
If you never realize the truth of Romans 3:23
If you never realize the truth of verse 5
You’ll never realize your need for a savior
Your own sin is THE point of the cross
He died on that cross for you sin
So that you could be with the father
In eternity
That’s the Gospel
Thats how He saved you
Thats how He saved me
If you don’t get that
Verse 6 here says
You’re walking in spiritual darkness
A blindness to our own sin
A blindness to the ways of God
TO THE SEPARATION FROM GOD
TO THE FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD
So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth.
You don’t have to be a genius to know
Something is off in this world
You really don’t
This world is messed up
It’s as if the influence
The desire to do good
Is gone
It’s missing
You know as a Chaplain
I get to hear all the good and the bad
Of what goes on in this world
Of what goes on around tower barracks
The pain
The suffering
The depression
Frustration
We are drowning in
Alcoholism
Divorce
Domestic abuse
Drug use
Something is off
But that’s what John is calling us to
An awakening
A Call to open our eyes to a new way of life
To a life that isn’t spiritually blind
A life that is focused on Good
Focused on serving others
Focused on the values of God
The morals of God
The ways of God
A life that is not spiritual blind
But a life that is in fellowship with God
Focused on love
A life in Fellowship with Him
A life surrounded
by peace
by kindness
by caring
A life filled with Hope
Its so heart breaking to watch Soldiers
To watch family members
Friends
But thats just it,
You cannot wake up
You cannot become spiritually awake
Without realizing
In Him is goodness
In him is perfection
In him is everything you have ever wanted
Its all right there
He must become your first love
Come to him
Call on him
Desire him
So many of us desire things
We feel are going to help
We feel are going to give us what we are missing
But end up at the exact same depressing
Hopeless
Miserable state
I see it
Every day
I see it
Just this past week
I was contacted by a friend of mine
This friend has a history of drug abuse
But I remember
When I first met her she was in horrible shape
Began to teach her the word of God
And as she grew in Christ
I watched her life change
I watched her motivations change
I watched her relationships
Her desires
Her habits change
Its truly amazing how easy it is to
fall back into that destructive life style
Very recently this same person
she lost a friend,
A good friend of mine as well
Lost him to gang violence
Drive by shooting
Through her grief
She has since fallen back into the very life style
That she worked so hard to overcome
You always have to be on guard
You always have to be yearning
Reaching for christ
In every situation
She just messaged me the other day begging again for help
Begging to get back into the light
Begging to help her get out of the darkness
The evil
The pure sickness that is so prevalent in this world
You see she knows the answer
She knows what she needs to do
But at times its so desperately hard
That’s what John is referring to
The fellowship
Fellowship with pure goodness
Pure love
In Him is light
everything you want!!!
Peace
Calm
Serenity
Family
Friends
The reality of what John is saying here
You cannot live a life of sin
And expect the benefits of the faith
You cannot live a life of sin
And expect to be in perfect harmony with God
Look what
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
Once commentator put it like this
The Bible Knowledge Commentary (1:7)
Thus true communion with God is living in the sphere where ones daily life is illumined, is shadowed, is overcome by the truth of what God is. It is to live open in full acceptance and a determined approach to His revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ in other-words a life focused on becoming more like our Savior...this entails believers’ acknowledging whatever the light reveals is wrong in their lives.
But this requires an acknowledgment of our own sin
A turning away from ourselves
And thats the issue
We are in love with our sin
Look what John says in
All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.
So many of us are in love with our sin
So many of us aren’t ready to give up our ways
To give up what is causing us so much pain
And I get it I really do.
Its so easy to fall into that destructive lifestyle
But the opposite is so good
It’s so worth it
I’ve seen lives completely changed
Futures once thought destroyed
Now filled with joy and love
My own family has seen this
My brother is a prime example
Dedicated his life to everything destructive,
Drugs
Alcohol
Burglary
He was the bottom of society
I watched him go from all that
To becoming a slave for Christ
To becoming a new person
A new creation
Now he owns his own business
Married
Adopted his daughter
Is living a life more productive
More secure
Than any of us could have ever imagined
All after he surrendered to Christ
After he surrendered to the light
After he begged God for help
Repented of his sins
And came into full relationship with Jesus
I remember one day
I was getting ready to go to work
He was staying with us on vacation
He was up at 0430 in the morning
Reading his bible
praying to God
I asked him how he does it,
How he finds the motivation
I remember him saying
Are you kidding me?! I get to spend time alone with my savior!
My brother is just one example of a life changed by Christ.
And this leads me to my final point
As a matter of fact this is perhaps one of my favorites passages
In the entire Bible
But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.
The hope we have in Jesus
Many of us here today
May be feeling worthless
May be suffering from a past sin
May be struggling with an addiction
May be feeling as though they are invaluable
Unforgivable
THIS IS NOT TRUE!
Many of you know
I was a counselor
Through a program called Celebrate recovery
I remember quoting this passage along with the serenity prayer
I remember the hope that this passage brought
The joy that this passage brought
Not only because it gives us a chance
But because it tells us we have a loving God
A caring God
One that knows your faults
One that knows your secrets
One that knows why you stay up at night crying
Why you feel so abandoned
Why you behave so destructively
This passage tells me that God loves me to
If you just surrender to love
Surrender to God
What I am saying is that God in the person of Jesus
Provided a way out
A new way of life
A new look on things
Come to Him
Gain that peace that surpasses all understanding
Gain a new perspective
And start to live awake
Eyes open
Start to ask that question
What is it that most valuable to you?
Is it sin
or is it redemption
eternal life
is it Jesus?!?!
I urge you today,
Take that next step in your relationship with God
Take that journey
press in
open the Word daily
Develop that relationship with Christ
Make that the most valuable thing in your life
I promise you, you won’t regret it
One last quote, and I’ll leave you with this
Billy Graham once said, I’ve net met a man who regretted his choice to follow Christ.
Neither will you.
Lets close in prayer